Aurelius' Art (or Stand Ready)
by Zeppelin.Belaying
Summary: Chekov has an accident. Now he has wings, useless for any purpose except for the advancement of science in the field of transporter technology. Nyota Uhura, faced with this, psychic ducks, and more, goes nonetheless about her duties.


Summary: Chekov has an accident. Now he has wings, useless for any purpose except for the advancement of science in the field of transporter technology. Nyota Uhura, faced with this, psychic ducks, and more, goes nonetheless about her duties.

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, or anything else created for the Star Trek Universe. Sadly. Nor do I gain any financial profit from this. Sigh...

* * *

**Chapter One**

Uhura blinked, as a substitute for covering her eyes with one hand and pinching the bridge of her nose with the other. She blinked inconspicuously, and translated for the Kandarians.

"Captain, the agreement is to our satisfaction," Uhura paused to listen, and filter the obscenities from trilled and glottal-stop-filled language. "...Though we are glad we do not have to be alongside humans in federation to broker trade." The Kandarians cut the air with sharp gestures.

"Come this way," Uhura conveyed, and awaited her turn to stand. She could not 'come this way' yet, thank you very much. The Kandatse President must stand first, and then the Captain. Spock next, and the rest of the Kandari delegation. It was in order of superiority.

As the Kandarians and the Enterprise personnel walked to the transporter room, their regulation boot heels did not echo off the walls. The walls were made of a crystalline material. It did not bounce sound well.

Before this mission, Scotty had read out loud from a footnote in the mission briefing - evidently compiled by Spock. His voice was just loud enough to carry over the muted chatter of the rec room.

"In their dark ages, the Kandarians used eye-gouging in common rituals. The most common among them involved volcanoes. The chemicals in the Kandarian eye reacted with the magma in an odd way. Thousands of Terran years later, Kandar's core had solidified. Kandar's crust now contains a crystalline form suffused throughout."

Though rare in the rest of the universe, this crystalline compound was very common on Kandar. It was consequently quite(/very nearly) worthless to the Kandari. It could be used to cool warp cores.

Thankfully, thought Uhura, Klingons often skipped doing their diplomatic research. She smiled violently without showing it on her face, thinking of the leaked holovid of that incident.

If you asked Uhura who had filmed it, or who had aired it, she'd tell you that she couldn't say, in a convincingly puzzled voice.

After final formalities, the Kandarians left the Enterprise crew alone in the transporter room. One Kandatsi technician behind the glass. Soundproofed, Uhura noticed, though for whose benefit, now that would remain a mystery.

The captain said "I'll be staying to sign the documents. Go on ahead," with a pointed look in Spock's direction. Spock shifted with his hands behind his back. His eyes held a particular blankness that Uhura could recognize from extensive experience. It meant that Spock was rifling through his mental filing cabinet of Starfleet regulations. Uhura did not have to have been present for their disagreement to know the content. It was a familiar discussion/subject.

In the past two years of their mission, Mr. Spock had been forced to become increasingly inventive in his methods of preventing dangerous situations. And when that failed, which was often, methods of dealing with said dangerous situations. He also became increasingly well-read in Starfleet regulation. When creatively applied, these regulations might keep Captain Kirk from inviting danger. This was not one of those times, it seemed.

"Yes sir," Spock nodded like his neck was stiff from leaning over his console. He would be the first to protest that Vulcans did not get stiff. He did not look happy. Not that 'happy' was a default setting for Vulcans. Their party stepped onto the transport pads, and Spock tuned to Uhura. "Lieutenant," he started. "In the conference, your translation appeared to misrepresent their gestures, from what the federation knows of their body language"

"Their gestures, Mr. Spock, were not fit for civilized conversation."

"I see" A beat, filled with Chekov's best attempt at muffling laughter, before: "Would you assist me in updating Starfleet's reference database at a later point in this mission?"

"Why of course, Mr. Spock."

Spock lifted his head. "Energize," he said. Uhura's form fell away from beneath her. A flash, and then feeling filled back in from soles of her feet to her eyebrows. For moments, she was of dust and breathing dust with fresh lungs. Sound trickled back into the space between her ears. A trickle, then screams, and shouted commands, but something -

"Have you called Medbay?" she strode off the pad, and put a hand on a technician's leg long enough to still him for an answer. No one had called Medbay. Uhura crossed the room in measured strides, passing Spock, who had knelt down next to Chekov. Chekov, who was screaming, prone on the floor. Her finger landed on the wall comm.

"Uhura to sickbay"

"M'benga here" returned a cool voice.

With her finger still on the button, Uhura leaned to see Chekov. He lay spread-eagle over the steps - no, he was on his front. Spock had turned him over - bloody clumps of feather carved into his back.

"I need a full team," she said. "Chekov is down. His back is," she paused, clenched her hand, took a breath. "A fright," she finished. In the background, Chekov's screams faded to ragged and rapid breathing under Spock's hands. The beeps and whistles, the hum of the engine would be heard. Uhura waited. She hated waiting.

* * *

Chekov was rushed to medbay. She had waited for that. She had to wait to check in on him. And apart from that, there was waiting to be done still. In every second, waitings overlap with waitings. In a given instant, waiting for the main computer to calculate a finding, and waiting for an order. To some extent or another, the stretch of time is defined by periods of waiting. On a day where she thinks of what she's waiting for, the waiting is painfully frustrating. But as she can do nothing but wait, she puts those thoughts away for later, under layers of duty and composure, to be dealt with when there is time. At present, Uhura is in the middle of a shift. She has work to do.

* * *

Uhura stepped through the sickbay doors, and the somehow foreboding whoosh of the sickbay doors walked through her. She looked around, losing her pace and purpose to the atmosphere. It was like wearing coloured lenses. The world was always a different shade in medbay. Such difference in scale of what people aim to preserve. In this area of the ship, the focus is on each specific life, specific organ, specific cell. The rest of the ship concerns itself with a far greater scale. Save a people, save a planet, stop a war. Neither view is any less in value, and they together create a balance of focus. They are two different aims, like two different strings. One pulling in each direction (not necessarily opposite) and combining to produce a steady course, as sure as the path of their silver lady.

Uhura could see Chekov and Doctor McCoy scowling at each other and together scowling at the medical equipment. They were busy, then. Uhura turned and passed by. She would see him in moments.

Now, Nyota Uhura was a woman who liked to open her own doors. She liked going into each situation, new or familiar, with open eyes, and control over the controllable. In her mind a sureness spreads until it meets curiosity.

As she lay her hand on the CMO's door handle, she knew how she presented herself. As in any situation, she knew the facts would present themselves for reaction.

Christine Chapel would be here. The nurse did CMO paperwork on occasion. The enterprise crewmen had a history of comparing her and McCoy to two peas in a pod, but one's surlier. This is broadly true, in the sense that one could look at a paragraph of impersonal text, documenting actions by Dr. McCoy and Nurse Chapel, and see similar actions under similar circumstances. In short, their behavioral patterns are similar. One could make that observation.

But that is the same level of ignorance as saying "every person must be average." It would be comparable to if life gave a lemon, and death gave an apple (keep the doctor away), and one were to determine that since the average colour on a wheel for these two spheres is orange, then therefore the colour of these two fruits must therefore be orange. One might go so far as to say that both these two fruits must therefore be oranges.

Regardless of behavioral patterns, neither Dr. McCoy nor Nurse Chapel are oranges.

People are much the same (given by life and death). No matter how many data points are allocated to a person, no matter what patterns are brought out, how many accurate behavioral predictions, a being is more than the sum of its parts. The sum is the being completed. But the parts, each individual incompletion, a morsel - a moment; that's what you see in a study about behavioral patterns.

Stimulus, reaction. Data points

Every thought bounces off time, and other beings' moments. The history, the product of each of us provides mirrors for the next being's moment. Every thought you lay is a foundation. Each being is, at its core a completely different metaphorical colour, not to be completely defined, or pulled to an average by another colour.

And so: Dr. McCoy and Nurse Chapel, peas in a pod and similar spiky lines on charts, are nonetheless different colours. They admire each other, Christine had told Uhura once. From understanding of the other and the others position, they had come to share some of their duties. The help you give in carrying on.

Uhura turned the door handle. And there was Christine, sat straight in a quote unquote ergonomic chair. Christine sat exactly the same way no matter what chair she sat in.

"Uhura," Christine said, businesslike. "How can I help you?"

"Not me, Chris," Uhura said softly.

"Chekov, then?"

Uhura smiled. "Christine," she said. "How are you?"

"Oh, well," Christine breathed, and relaxed to mirror Uhura's posture: legs crossed, elbows on knees, chin on closed fist. Uhura reached across the desk to take Christine's other hand in her own hands. Christine squeezed back.

"There were pseudori in engineering three months ago. They were captured and beamed back planetside, as you know. Not before they pecked ambassador Sarek and had a large hand in eroding terran-tellarite relations."

Uhura huffed goodnaturedly.

"The information we didn't have," Chapel continued. "Was the incubation period of pseudori eggs. And the fact they can't be found with ordinary sensors. Luckily, Lt. Kyle had an antique metal detector in his quarters. We have mischievous psychic baby chickens whose primary defense mechanism is to create confusion, under study in the Medlabs. There are probably eggs we haven't found yet. And-" she broke off with a long-suffering sigh, and closed her eyes on an inhale. She continued very factually. "Lt. Kyle just pulled me aside to confess that he stole his antique detector from an auction. Now, three months after we didn't know, we-we-Hmm. We have the information now." Christine nodded firmly, in an official and satisfied manner. They strained for silence for pressing seconds.

They collapsed laughing.

Uhura banged on the desk. "Well good thing he stole it then," she managed.

A scandalised "Nyota!" sounded from the floor.

"Sorry, sorry," Uhura laughed. "But is it something you can change now?"

"No," Chapel grated out. "But-"

"Then don't worry about it."

Chapel looked to the side. "I worry about Chekov."

Uhura nodded and listened to conversation filter in from the next room.

"It does not hurt, it never did-" That was Chekov

"Your readings are sky-" McCoy

"It is the shock-"

" I can't do anything if you don't let me administer-"

"Not a chance."

Uhura and Chapel shared a glance. Christine scrunched her nose up. "Chekov needs to know how they work. Dr. McCoy cleaned up as best he could, but Chekov won't let him remove them."

"The...feathers in his skin?"

"Yes. Wings"

They listened to Dr. McCoy stomp away. Uhura stood, pulling Chaple up with her. Two kisses on the cheeks. Christine said "Come with me," and so they went together to Chekov.

Chekov startled at their paired steps. Chapel busied herself with checking over, and Chekov's eyes tracked her. He said "Miss Uhura, this is cruel and unusual. They are detaining me against my will."

With a finger against his shoulder, chapel pushed him firmly back to a lying position.

Chekov was indignant. "This is an unprecedented genetic transfer that will change our understanding of possibilities available in using transporter technology. In instants not only reassembling a pattern, but also solidifying something by extrapolating from genetic code. Which was not in the logged pattern. And, I did not de-materialize with gencode assimilated! And did…" Chekov went on with rather expressive facial expressions.

'Hmm, well,' Uhura reflected. 'At least he's indignant in a horizontal position.'


End file.
